Ending fascism, despite inflation
When we were up in Asheville last weekend, I scanned our bookshelves before we left and grabbed an old envelope of stuff that I'd forgotten about for a while. It was the packet of material that I brought back from the semester my junior year that I spent backpacking with a group of about a dozen other students studying "Nature philosophy and religion" through a UC extension program called the Sierra Institute.
That was a tremendous program, a great way to spend a semester (and, helpfully, the easiest As I ever got). We met as a group for the first time in Santa Cruz, then went on several different 7-10 day backpacking trips from the coast to the mountains to the desert in California. We'd hike in to someplace remote, and then spend the rest of our time there having class discussions, doing day hikes, cooking and so on.
I didn't have much of a connection to the class topics. I chose the nature philosophy class, as I recall, mostly because the other ones sounded a lot more scientific and technical, and the whole things sounded like it'd be a lot more fun if I didn't have to study all the time. Our classes were about Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism and stuff like that, which was interesting but not anything I was particularly into personally.
As you might expect, though, the others in the class were total hippies. Now, I love me all the hippies, but I can't grow enough facial hair to ever pass as one myself and since I don't go for the Gaia Power and wasn't particularly eager to unleash my Wild Man, and since sharing my inner most thoughts and feelings usually only takes about three minutes and revolves mostly around snack foods, I'd have to say that objectively I was kind of the freak of the group, not totally fitting in.
But I did get along with everybody on the trip and considered them all good friends by the end of it, even though I realized as I picked up the envelope last weekend that I couldn't remember a single one of their names. I remember almost all of their "trail names" - there was Bean and Smelly and Koan and Topaz and Jo Mama and Inuk and Morraine and the rest (I was Fozzie) - but since we almost literally never used our real names, those never had any reason to sink in. The only real name I remember is that of our instructor, because it was such a perfect name for a college professor who teaches in the wilderness - Walker Abel.
I figured there would be a class roster somewhere in that envelope, though, so I brought it with me back down here to Atlanta figuring that at some point it would seem like more fun than working to find the list and Google those names to see where everyone is these days. I'd kind of like to know which of them turned out to be corporate lobbyists or Republicans.
Sadly, this envelope only had class papers in it, not the class roster or anything else that had all our names. I looked through that stuff for a few minutes and, not finding what I wanted, was about to stuff it all back in and forget about it again when I saw, stuck down at the bottom of the envelope, a couple of letters. They were from two of my classmates from after we got back and had returned to our regular colleges. (This would have been like 1993, when college students still wrote letters).
I couldn't make out all the faded hippie etchings in the two letters, but it was a great joy to read what I could. Inuk, for example, related how he had recently succeeded in getting one of his class groups to take a study break so they could, as a group, go outside and howl at the moon.
But Koan's was even better because it still had, folded inside it, a $25 money order he had sent to repay me some gas money. I have no idea why I didn't cash it at the time - $25 bought a hell of a lot more gas in 1993 than it does today. But for whatever reason, I had just stuck it back in the envelope and forgotten about it for 15 years.
Seemed kind of stupid to do that again, so just on a lark I took it down to my bank to see if they'd actually still honor it, since it didn't have any kind of expiration date on it. It required a confab with the branch manager who I guess couldn't think of any real reason not to deposit a money order from 1993, so I did finally get my $25, if just late for some mysterious reason.
It wasn't until I looked a little more closely at Koan's letter that I finally realized why I must not have cashed it at the time. In true Sierra Institute style, he had included an exhortation that I use the $25 "to end fascism!" I guess at the time I just hadn't been able to think of a good way to use two tens and a five to such grand effect.
But fortunately, this is 2008. I sent the money to Barack Obama.
That was a tremendous program, a great way to spend a semester (and, helpfully, the easiest As I ever got). We met as a group for the first time in Santa Cruz, then went on several different 7-10 day backpacking trips from the coast to the mountains to the desert in California. We'd hike in to someplace remote, and then spend the rest of our time there having class discussions, doing day hikes, cooking and so on.
I didn't have much of a connection to the class topics. I chose the nature philosophy class, as I recall, mostly because the other ones sounded a lot more scientific and technical, and the whole things sounded like it'd be a lot more fun if I didn't have to study all the time. Our classes were about Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism and stuff like that, which was interesting but not anything I was particularly into personally.
As you might expect, though, the others in the class were total hippies. Now, I love me all the hippies, but I can't grow enough facial hair to ever pass as one myself and since I don't go for the Gaia Power and wasn't particularly eager to unleash my Wild Man, and since sharing my inner most thoughts and feelings usually only takes about three minutes and revolves mostly around snack foods, I'd have to say that objectively I was kind of the freak of the group, not totally fitting in.
But I did get along with everybody on the trip and considered them all good friends by the end of it, even though I realized as I picked up the envelope last weekend that I couldn't remember a single one of their names. I remember almost all of their "trail names" - there was Bean and Smelly and Koan and Topaz and Jo Mama and Inuk and Morraine and the rest (I was Fozzie) - but since we almost literally never used our real names, those never had any reason to sink in. The only real name I remember is that of our instructor, because it was such a perfect name for a college professor who teaches in the wilderness - Walker Abel.
I figured there would be a class roster somewhere in that envelope, though, so I brought it with me back down here to Atlanta figuring that at some point it would seem like more fun than working to find the list and Google those names to see where everyone is these days. I'd kind of like to know which of them turned out to be corporate lobbyists or Republicans.
Sadly, this envelope only had class papers in it, not the class roster or anything else that had all our names. I looked through that stuff for a few minutes and, not finding what I wanted, was about to stuff it all back in and forget about it again when I saw, stuck down at the bottom of the envelope, a couple of letters. They were from two of my classmates from after we got back and had returned to our regular colleges. (This would have been like 1993, when college students still wrote letters).
I couldn't make out all the faded hippie etchings in the two letters, but it was a great joy to read what I could. Inuk, for example, related how he had recently succeeded in getting one of his class groups to take a study break so they could, as a group, go outside and howl at the moon.
But Koan's was even better because it still had, folded inside it, a $25 money order he had sent to repay me some gas money. I have no idea why I didn't cash it at the time - $25 bought a hell of a lot more gas in 1993 than it does today. But for whatever reason, I had just stuck it back in the envelope and forgotten about it for 15 years.
Seemed kind of stupid to do that again, so just on a lark I took it down to my bank to see if they'd actually still honor it, since it didn't have any kind of expiration date on it. It required a confab with the branch manager who I guess couldn't think of any real reason not to deposit a money order from 1993, so I did finally get my $25, if just late for some mysterious reason.
It wasn't until I looked a little more closely at Koan's letter that I finally realized why I must not have cashed it at the time. In true Sierra Institute style, he had included an exhortation that I use the $25 "to end fascism!" I guess at the time I just hadn't been able to think of a good way to use two tens and a five to such grand effect.
But fortunately, this is 2008. I sent the money to Barack Obama.
posted by Matt | 5:38 PM
1 Comments:
Brilliantly written!
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